I’m terribly sorry for not writing. Let’s chalk it up to Mercury Retrograde, shall we?

A while ago I watched a short documentary called “The Science of Sex Appeal” which understandably focused part of its discussion on visual attraction, and how most people can come to a consensus about faces that are more attractive. We find the attractive faces generally more proportionate, but proportionate to what? Well apparently, faces that conform to the Golden Ratio, or “Phi”, are universally considered more appealing.

Here’s how it works:

This proportion is found more easily in faces most people consider attractive; for example, the ratio can be demonstrated by the length of the face: “a+b”, proportionate to “a”: the distance between the tip of the chin and where the eyebrows meet.

Then I started wondering how this might be applied to website design. Apparently, I am not the first to have considered this. Take for example, the homepage for Life magazine, which won a Webby in 2011 for “BEST VISUAL DESIGN – AESTHETIC”:

Now let’s apply an overlay of the Golden Rectangle over the same image of the Life homepage.

A great template for web design that’s universally appealing! I wonder if such a thing is now being taught in schools…

What’s more intriguing, though, is the question WHY this particular ratio is so aesthetically appealing to our brains? Humans have applied it in various examples of art, architecture and design, the Fibonacci sequence (which is an approximation of the Golden Ratio), but the ratio itself is beyond ourselves and our creation.

Approximations of “Phi” occur almost everywhere in nature, the proportions of the human body, and the dimensions and orbits of the planets in our solar system. But it’s more of a template, not necessarily a reality. It reminds me of the story of Plato’s idea of perfect forms, as well as the Allegory of the Cave. “Phi” is perhaps something to strive for, but reality (and from a more practical point of view, the needs of the business) may dictate differently.